Grand Jury Grills The First Lady Hillary Clinton Tells Panel She Doesn’t Know How Billing Records Reappeared

In a historic confrontation, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton faced a federal grand jury for four hours Friday to say under oath she knew nothing about the mysterious discovery of her legal records.

“I was glad to have the opportunity to tell the grand jury what I have been telling all of you,” she told reporters with a smile. “I do not know how the billing records came to be found where they were found.”

The first sitting first lady ever to testify before a grand jury, Clinton added, “I am pleased that they were found, because they confirm what I have been saying.”

“I, like everyone else, would like to know the answer about how those documents showed up after all those years,” she said. “It would have been certainly to my advantage, in trying to bring this matter to a conclusion, if they had been found several years ago.”

Clinton appeared as a “witness” - distinct from a “target” or “subject” of investigations who typically face prosecution after they testify.

The grand jury is trying to learn whether there was any criminal wrongdoing involved with the reappearance of the long-missing 116 pages of legal documents.

Investigators have sought the billing records for two years to determine whether the first lady did anything illegal for Madison Guaranty - a savings and loan that was owned by one of her partners in the Whitewater land deal - during the mid-1980s.

Clinton has denied any wrongdoing in her work for Madison Guaranty, which eventually went bankrupt at a cost of $65 million.

The documents were discovered by Carolyn Huber, her correspondence secretary.

Huber, a former office manager at the Rose Law Firm, told the Senate Whitewater investigating committee last week that she found the records last August in the so-called “book room” of the Clintons’ private residence where Clinton had been writing her recently released book.

Not realizing the importance of the records, she tossed them in a box, which was then stored in her office. When she reopened the box a few weeks ago, she recognized the records as important to the Whitewater case and they were promptly turned over to investigators.

In a dingy room on the third floor of the District of Columbia federal courthouse, Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr and up to 23 grand jurors grilled Clinton from about 2 p.m. to soon after 6 p.m., with three 10-minute breaks.

Federal law requires witnesses to appear alone before the grand jury without lawyers or advisers.

“There were no surprises,” White House spokesman Mark Fabiani said. “The questions, as anticipated, focused on the discovery and contents of the Rose Law Firm billing records.”

Fabiani said the first lady told the grand jury that she never handled the records in the White House.

The session was completed and prosecutors said nothing about asking her to return for further testimony on this issue, Fabiani said.

Walking out of the courthouse without her coat, a tired-looking Clinton called her experience “a long day.”

Without going into detail, she said, “Other matters were discussed, but most of it concerned the billing records.”

Signaling that the questioning was not pleasant, she said there were “about a million other places” she would have rather been.

A minor controversy arose after one of the grand jurors carried a copy of Clinton’s new book into the grand jury room, got her autograph and later told a reporter about it.

The White House said Clinton autographed the book after getting permission from Starr.

Meanwhile, a Democrat on the Senate Whitewater Committee said the emergence of the long-sought billing records “does raise questions” and that he “might vote for” a limited extension of the congressional probe.

Sen. Paul Simon, D-Ill., becomes the first Democrat on the panel to say he might back lifting the Feb. 29 deadline contained in a Senate resolution.

Republicans favor an open-ended extension.

President Clinton delayed his departure for a dinner to wait for his wife to return to the White House.

The president has denied any knowledge of the disputed records.

Although the first lady is permitted to talk about her testimony, the prosecutors and grand jurors are banned by law from discussing the secret proceedings.

But the length of her testimony suggests prosecutors forced her to answer far more questions about her billing records than she had answered in the past.

On three previous occasions, Starr, a Republican, took sworn testimony about Whitewater from both the president and first lady at the White House.

But this time, in an apparent show of anger, Starr chose to force the first lady to testify in person.

“It’s no accident Ken Starr chose to call her the week of the State of the Union,” one top White House official said. “But this looks a lot worse than it really is.”

Some 200 people were on hand for the first lady’s arrival at the courthouse.

“We’re with you, Hillary,” said one sign. “Liar, liar, your pants on fire!” said another.

The event culminated more than two weeks of disclosures and contentions about Clinton’s roles in both Whitewater and the White House travel office firings.

Polls show Clinton’s popularity has plummeted and that a majority of Americans do not believe she has told the whole truth.